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Thomas R. Hoerr
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There is a great deal of talk these days about using a value -added approach to look at
students' progress. Instead of just determining whether a student is performing at
grade level, why not measure the student against his or her previous performance?
Then, in turn, let's evaluate teachers according to whether students have made
progress. The thinking is that exceptional teachers are those whose students show the
greatest gains.

It's hard to argue against chartin g student progress, but when it comes to the value -
added approach, there does seem to be a lot of arguing going on. In this case, the
debate centers on teacher performance and accountability. Should we applaud more
for the teacher whose highflying students achieve above grade level, as they did last
year and the year before, or for the teacher whose students still aren't at grade level
but who made more progress than in previous years? Those are thorny questions that
touch on issues related to measurement, the role of teachers, the place of schools, and
the nature of the profession. And no, I am not going to try to address those issues here.

What I am going to do is say that we should consider applying something like this
value-added approach to meacher growth. Why shouldn't we use information from a
teacher's professional history to set goals and create expectations? However good Ms.
Pita was last year, don't we want her to be better this year and to improve even more
next year?

Before you spill your coffee, note that I am not suggesting that we define a teacher's
history by students' test scores alone (although test scores should be part of the
formula). When we look at a teacher's history, we need to consider all of the factors
that relate to teacher effect iveness.

What about a teacher's ability to create enthusiasm for learning, for example? How
about a teacher's commitment to collegiality? And shouldn't we value a teacher's efforts
to work with students' parents? Regardless of how good our teachers are in each of
these areas, we want them to improve; moreover, they need to improve. What was
good yesterday will not be adequate tomorrow. Principals need to create situations in
which every teacher grows. And how can we determine progress without
measurement?

Too often, educators get sidetracked by focusing only on grades, grade -level
equivalents, and percentiles. Those are all valid measures, but they're not the only
ways to gauge growth. Part of the reason that our society gives so much attention to
test scores is that we are so bad at measuring other, more amorphous qualities. That's
our fault. If enthusiasm for learning is important ²and we know it is ²we ought to be
able to measure it. How might we do that? Certainly not with a multiple -choice
enthusiasm test! Instead, we might examine students' reflections in logs or journals or
use rubrics to capture evidence of joyful learning. Or we might even ask students to
create a play, song, or piece of art that shows how they feel about learning and school.

We could take a similar approach to measuring growth in faculty collegiality or working

with parents. How all of these qualities are measured would vary by school and
educational context. Indeed, convening a faculty committee to talk about how "joyful
learning," for example, might be assessed and monitored could be a wonderfully rich
exercise. It would be great to get student input here, too.

Establishing measures for these kinds of variables would enable educators to set
meaningful professional goals and work toward improvement. At my school, for
example, teachers set individual goals that focus on incorporating multiple intelligences
in their pedagogy and assessment. In addition, teacher teams set goals for using new
technology in their instruction. Invariably, prog ress on these kinds of goals isn't as
easily measured as average attendance, days lost to suspension, or how many books
have been read (and to be fair, each of these indicators is also important). But we
cannot let the difficulty prevent us from setting me aningful goals and trying to capture
growth.

When I think about value -added assessment, I think that everyone in my school should
be performing better this year than in the past. Sure, I want students to be reading and
calculating better, but I also want teachers to be making instruction more engaging and
classrooms more exciting. I want faculty committees biting off tough tasks and pushing
themselves to figure out better solutions. And it doesn't stop at my door. I want to do a
better job of listening and supporting. I want my students and my teachers to be eager
to come to school every day because they know that learning is exciting and that they
are going to learn more. I want to know how good we are today so that in the future I
can look back and see ho w we have improved. That's the value that I want to add.
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T
  is head of school at the New City School, 5209 Waterman Ave., St.
Louis, MO 63108; 
 

. He is the author of The Art of School
Leadership (ASCD, 2005) and chool Leadership for mhe Fumure (NAIS Press, 2008).
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